and he was no slouch when it came totaking ondifficultphenomena.Experience—notgenetics, not trainingprograms, not business school—istheprimary source of learning to lead, and while our understanding of this kind of experience

is farfrom complete, it is absolutely the place tostart.

This article begins with sevenreasonably surebetsaboutthe role ofexperience

in leadership development, ponders the reasonsthatwhatisknown

is so rarely applied,

suggestssome thingsthat can be done

to put experience

at the centerof development, and concludes with recommendations for practice andforresearch.

SevenSure Bets

It may be true as has oft been said that there

is nothing sure in this world but death andtaxes,but there are some things we have learned over the last decades about experience thatcome close to sure bets, or at least odds-on favorites. Here are seven of them.

(1)To the extent it is learned,leadership is learned

from experience.For most audiencesthis is an easily accepted statement, one so obvious that no additional proof is necessary. It iscomforting, however, that there is some evidence to support it.Research

on twins

doneover theyearsat the University of Minnesota has looked at all manner of personality and other traits,

1

This paper evolved from aninvitedaddress,

“Lessons of My Experience: Three Decades of Exploring LeadershipDevelopment,”to the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology in April of 2009

as recipient of the 2008Distinguished Professional Contributions Award.Thanks

to my colleague, George Hollenbeck, and to ananonymous reviewer, both of whom

made helpful comments on an earlier draft.

2

The focus of this article is on developing people with the potential to become effective executive leaders in anorganizational setting. While there are many definitions of leadership, most of the research upon which this articlerests was done on managers and executives, and the terms leadership talent and executive talent will be usedinterchangeably.

2

consistently finding that

30-50% of the variance can be attributed to heredity. When Arvey andhis colleagues used the twin study paradigm with the criterion“leadership

that shaped their development. Theseexperiences can beclassifiedroughlyas early work experiences, short-term assignments, majorline assignments, other people (almost always very good and very bad bosses or superiors),hardships of various kinds, and somemiscellaneous

events like training programs.There reallyis no need to do more research on this topic unless a particular company needs to

say the findingsare uniquely theirs.

Somewhat less certain is the

resulting

folklore that there is a“70-20-10 rule”

(I

have notfound an original

published source, thoughthe percentages clearly come from data

reported inMcCall et al., 1988, and Lindsey,Homes, & McCall, 1987)

that “experience” shouldconsist of

70% challenging assignments, 20% other people (in the original data these“other people”

While the rule of thumb makes apositive contribution by increasing the emphasis on on-the-job experience, it also misleads bysuggesting that coaching,mentoring, and programs are effective whenusedas stand alone

3

interventions.

In fact the best useofall three is in support of on-the-job development, most

especially in real time asjob experiences unfold.

(3)Theseexperiences

arepowerful

because of the challenges they present. From theoriginal study forward (see especially Lindsey et al., 1987) the elements that make an experiencepowerful, as well as the specific elements that make specific experiences powerful, have beenidentified (seeMcCauley,Ruderman, Ohlot, & Morrow, 1994,for the definitive empiricalstudy). Essentially whatever makes an experience challenging—the unexpected, high stakes,complexity, pressure, novelty, etc.—is what makes itapotentially

that make a given experiencepowerful, then it follows logically that what onemight

learn is how to handle thosechallenges.

In a start up, for example, there is a lot of excitement about doing something new, but

one of thechallenges is thatno one knows exactly how to go about it. The leadership challenge, andtherefore what must be learned, is

how to take advantage of that energy and move forward whenthere is no roadmap to follow. In a turnaround, the challenges include diagnosing at a deep levelwhat is broken and, that done, restructuring the organization—so the required learningincludesunderstanding what drives the business and how to design(or, more accurately, redesign)theorganization to achieve it.

There is no magic to discovering what is in an experience—thatis essentially a logicalexercise. The difficulty comes in determiningwhether or nota specific person

andsometimesbyaddingcoaching. Again, nothing exotic here—just straightforward application of whatisknown.Assignments can be enhanced without forcing a person to change jobs,andtimelier

and betterfeedback and coaching can increase the probability that a person will focus and learn. This is sostraightforwardone has to wonder why it isn’t done all the time.

(6)Peoplecan get many of the experiencesthey need

in spite of the obstacles.

Whilemany relevant experiences obviously occur early in life or off the job,stillothers, such as screwups andpersonalcrises, cannot be(or at least should not be)manipulated directly. But when itcomes to bosses and assignments,whoever decides who gets what job controls developmentalopportunities. Whether an immediate boss or some succession planning process makes the call,getting people into the experiences they needisa matter of knowing who needs whatexperiences, having the experiences available,

to learning, both in terms ofproviding meaningfulhelp during importantcareer transitions (see, for example, Linda Hill’s (1992) research on first-time managers,Charan, Drotter, & Noel’s

(2001)“critical career passages,”

and Gabarro’s (1997)stages of “taking charge”), andin the juxtaposition of experiencewith

an individual’s readinesstolearn.As an example of the latter, one newly promoted executive told the author that “there isa lot of politics at headquarters and I don’t have time for that.” Despite the fact that an essentialpart of his new job was influencing those very executives at headquarters,and that learning to dothat was the essential challenge in his promotion from a largely technical managerial role, he wasnot yet ready to acknowledge the value in acquiring that ability.Apparentlylearning fromexperience is less likely when peopleare not yet ready to embracethe lessons

that are offered.

Despite Sure Bets, the Money is on Other Horses

There may be more than these seven sure bets, and some may not be quite as sure as

wewould

like them to be, butthe leadership development field

has

come

a long way from a

singular

emphasison training and educational programs

as“the way”

to develop executive talent

to a

better

understandingand acceptanceof the central role of experience.But the theoreticalelegance

of the competency approachand its utility in integrating HR systemsstill trumps theinherent messiness of experience-based development, at least among most human resourcepractitioners.

Either there are too many pieces still missingto implement atruly experience-

6

centered development approach,or thelack of control over assignments and who gets them, orboth,lead

many

in human resources and talent managementto seek the seemingly saferandbetter knownhaven of integrated competencies, 360 feedback, performance management,training interventions, and HR processes. This is not without justification, as there are still somereally tough nuts to crack before experience-based development will win skeptical hearts andminds

(Hollenbeck, McCall, & Silzer, 2006).

While it may not be so clear to HR professionals, it is intuitively obvious to mostexecutives that leadership, to the degree it is learned at all,

is learned on the job (i.e. fromexperience);

therefore it should be easy to get them to buy into an experience-based developmentapproach.From their perspective,

leadership is developed by simply doing what comesnaturally. Consider the following recipe for developing managerial talent from automotive guruCarlos Ghosn, CEO of both Nissan and Renault:

You prepare them by sending them to the most difficult places…. Tomorrow’s leadersget their training by dealing with today’s challenges. You have to take the ones with themost potential and send them where the action is….Leaders are formed in the fires ofexperience. It’s up to thehead

of the company to prepare a new generation and to sendthem to hot spots as part of their training…. (H)emust choose…the future managers anddirectors…notbecause

The common wisdom is that reaching executive ranks requires “earning your stripes.”Doing what comes naturally, executives identify potential (“I know it when I see it”) and throwthose with it into the fires to test their mettle.An example of that isMark Hurd, who replaced

7

Carly Fiorina as CEO of Hewlett Packard and is credited withresurrecting HP,who wasidentified early on andreceived much

of his leadership developmentduring his tenure at NCR.

“Our theory on people was that you give them responsibility,” says Gilbert Williamson, aCEO of NCR during Hurd’s rise. “To my knowledge, every time we threw Mark out thewindow he landed on his feet. So we moved him up a floor, and he landed on his feetagain” (Lashinsky, 2009,p.96).

Although

theidea

of developing leadership talent through experience is an easy sell toline executives, it is surprising how few organizations actually do it effectively.This is truedespite

aresearch trail

thatgenerated

enough knowledgefor organizationsto use experiencemore systematically, if not entirely programmatically.Much of what is needed has been aroundfor some time now, and the tools exist to handle selection, feedback,support, and other processesessential to learning from experience.But in spite of increased knowledge and acceptance, theHR community has been slow toembrace the idea that on-the-job experience should be thedriving force in development and not just oneoptionamongequals

that include training,mentoring, rotational programs, coaching,

and development programs of various types.

In short, there is no reason that experience-based development can’t be done effectively,or at least more effectively.Why isn’t

As these things go, our understanding of what it takes to build an experience-basedleadership development process is quite advanced. There are, to be sure, someareas that need

8

more attention,

most especially a better understanding of potential and how to assess it at variousstages of a career

and a clearer picture of what can be done to insure that the desired learningfrom an experience actually occurs. But the “knowing-doing gap” (Pfeffer & Sutton, 2000) inthis case is not the result of these

gaps in knowledge, large as they may be.More than enough

isknown

to do a pretty good job of putting experience to work. So what, then, keeps it fromhappening more often and with more sophistication?

The answer to that question

lies deeplyembedded in the assumptions, beliefs, and practices that influence many line executives andmany human resource professionals.

First, and perhaps most daunting, are assumptions about what people can learn (or, statedperhaps more accurately, about what they can’t learn). Sometimes explicit but more often not,the belief that leadership is something you either have or youdon’t undermines efforts to use

experience for development.It

isclearlyan advantage that executives are willing to throwpeople into firesor out of windows(translated: give them challenges) because that providesopportunities to develop. But itcan bea decided disadvantageif

those executives are doing it to

seewhether

those thrown

into firesemerge unscathed or

thosetossed from windows

“land ontheir feet.”In that case experience isless about development than about testing, and because ofthat there is littleinvestmentin

helping

people

learn from theexperience. So whilemany thingscan be done to increase learning, the assumption is that the trulytalented

will

figure it outwithout

any

help.

In the practical world, this

argument cannot be disproved because there is nomechanism for discovering if those who did not “land on their feet” might have developed ifonly they had had some help.

9

Changingexecutives’

beliefs about the nature ofleadershipis

tough,and not made anyeasier

bythosewho argue that people don’t change

and therefore

should be playedonlyto theirstrengths

(for

a detailed analysis of the flaws in this argument see Kaiser, 2009).

The second obstacle

is no less damaging for all of its obviousness. Results are achievedshort term; development is a longer-term proposition. It

can be

difficult to get some executivesto think long term about the strategic needs of the business, much less about long-term individualdevelopment.When it comes to important and challenging assignments—the very ones with the

most developmental potential—thepressures to choose the proven candidate over the one whomight learn the most is often overwhelming, especially in tough times.

Keepingpeople

doingwhat they already know how to do,

and do well,

gets results

evenat

the

risk—even likelihood—that doing so will derail those talented people at some point in the future.

Like the belief that you have it or you don’t, there isno

easy cure for a short-termperspective.A maniacal focus on resultscripplesefforts to move people into new things,totrackgrowth over acareer,and

to

hold managers

accountable for developing

their people.

Short-term thinking is bolstered by (or perhaps causes) the third factor, a misplacedunderstanding of the true cost of development. The bottom line in leadership development iselusive at best,and attempts tomeasureit tend to emphasizevisible and to some degreequantifiableHRexpenditures ontraining programs, coaching, consulting

fees, tuitionreimbursement, and the like, not to mention the expense

of the HR staffitself—all things forwhich costs can becalculated. Unfortunately return on those costs is much harder to determinebecauseat best

they haveindirecteffects

on the bottom line.HR programshave indirect effectsto the extent that they operate toimprove the effectiveness ofthe actual source of development—experience—which in turn partially influencesthe quality of leadership which in turn is only one

10

factor determining organizational performance.

Looked at in isolation and with unrealisticexpectations, HR programsmake excellent and easy targets for cost-cutting.

The actual cost of developmentisin theopportunity costs associated with thelearningcurve as people take on new things, pluswhatever is invested inhelping them learn from thoseexperiences. The return on that investmentisthe long-termimpact

The fourth issue isconnected tothe first three. What priority should development haveamong all the priorities of the business? If it is construed as something separate from thestrategic business needs of the organization, even if in support of them, it competes with otherthings that need to be done. It is a legitimate question just where in the priority list developingleadership talent should be, and it is no surprise that it ends up somewhere down the list.If talentcan be bought, how much effort should go into internal development? How long is long term,and what do you do if the time horizon for developing talent is longer than the time horizon forthe business strategy?

The answers to such questions are not obvious.

Even if senior management places an adequate priority on development and puts

resources into it,

turning itover

to human resources

to implement can be a mistake.Many HRprofessionals don’t havesufficientunderstanding of the strategy, jobs, and people to useexperience effectively.Lack of knowledge, coupled with

the ambiguity inherent in usingexperience to drive development,

can increase the appeal of

competencymodelsthat boilleadership

down to a list of attributesthat can be

developed

using

an integrated set ofknowntools and methodologies,from training to performance management. Itis a comforting illusion.

are looking for is competence, not a list ofattributes. Successfulleadershave different styles (Herb Kelleher, Jack Welch, and AnneMulcahy were all successful leaders, but they achieved that success

with their own

uniquestyles), and equifinality rules (there are equally effective but different ways to achieve the sameoutcome).Asingle set of competenciesapplied to allleaders

can create a common language fortalking about leadership and even an integrated system of human resources policies andpractices. But to the extent that there is no one “best” way to lead and that experience drivesdevelopment, this approach focusesdevelopmenteffort in the wrong place.

Evencommon HRapplications that appear to take advantage of experience, such as jobrotation andaction learning projects, often fail to make full use of the accumulated knowledgeabout how experience teaches.

it can be a very inefficientand incomplete approach to development.In an action learning

model, where teamsin a trainingprogram tackle organizational problems,the teamssometimes focus so intently on solving theproblem that learningtakes a back seat. Even worse, insome cases the problems that are theheart of action learning

may not be important to senior management, or the recommendationsmay not be taken seriously at senior levels.

In such cases the project may be seen as “makework” and can even backfire,generating

cynicism rather than development.

Betting On a Different Horse

It is one thing to acknowledge an imperfect world but quite another to engage it knowingfull well that there is no perfect solution. What follows are some imperfect strategies for puttingbusiness need and developmental experiences at the center of development.

GoWiththe

Flow

Rather Than Fight It

12

Article after article talks about the necessity of top management support and how difficultit is to “sell” them on the value of varioushuman resourceendeavors.

The catch is that whileexecutiveslike the idea of challenging their top talent,

at the same time many of them make some nastyassumptionsthatget in the way

of actually using challengingexperiences to develop that talent.The apparent paradox flows from deeply rooted beliefs that leadership, or executive talent, orwhatever you want to call it, is a natural gift and very difficult if not

impossible to develop.

Thusthe advantage of executive receptivity to experience-based development is in some ways negatedby their skepticism about development. There is just enough truth in their point of view

or they don’tis not erodedno matter what happens whentalented people are thrown into tough assignments.Ifthey

figure it out and do

well, it proveswhat the executive suspected all along, thatthey

havethe right stuff.

If they don’t, thenfailuresimply proves thattheydidn’t have it after all.

The temptation is to fight this self-fulfilling and counter-productive perspective.Measurement toolsare createdto offset subjective judgments about talent and performance, and“hard”dataare collectedto “prove” that investments in various development activities pay off.Then these data-based tools and conclusionsare builtinto executive processes like successionplanning,with thebelief

that rationality will prevail and the decisionswillbe more objective.

13

The futility of this approach is apparent in the example of onerepresentativeseniorexecutive teamthe author observed as itwentthrough the succession planning process. The HRstaff

had worked for weeks putting together comprehensive dossiers on the people who would beconsidered in the session. Available data included systematic performancereviews, work historydata, 360-degree feedback summaries—a rather impressive collection of relatively hard data.But as the session unfolded, virtually no reference was made by any executive to the data in thefolders in front of them. It wasnot that the date were inaccurate or irrelevant; rather it wasalreadyobviousto theseexecutives that the people they were discussingwereimpressive or theywould notevenbe in the pool for discussion. Data supporting the obvious wasnot all thatuseful, so the conversation turned to other things

(see Table 1).

Table1 abouthere

It is easy to be critical of thediscussion—afterall, these kinds of comments sound purelysubjective.Butthese executives were extremely bright, andthere was clearly energy in thediscussion of

these people, so instead of criticizing what was happening would it be possible touse it? What if these were the right conversations, or if not right, the conversations that weregoing to take place regardless of whatever objective dataor processessomeone foist upon them?

Could slight deflectionschannel that energy to achieve better outcomes?

Looking

more deeply for the meaning beneath the short-hand phrases and sometimes glibcomments, these executiveswere in fact talking about the same things research haddiscovered;

only they were putting it all in their own lingo and framing it with their particular lenses

(seeTable 2). Many of their observations were about derailment, and how the weaknesses of somepeople had, to this point, been overshadowed by their strengths

and accomplishments but wereno longer acceptable. Other observations took into account the kinds of challenges these people

14

had faced and what facing those challenges had revealed about their capabilities. Still otherassessments focused on particularchallenges that the business faced and how a certaincandidate’s prior experience demonstrated an ability to “see the big picture.” And otherevaluations focused on contextual issues, specifically whether a candidate was willing to move toget needed experience or if there was an adequate replacement if a candidate were to leave thecurrent job.

Table 2 about here

In other words, these senior executives were talking about derailment, challengingassignments, what experiences make a person valuable to thecompany, and availabilityorwillingnessto take on new and

challenging assignments—all

things that havesurfaced in

decades of research on how executives develop. To be sure, there was a heavy dose of Darwin

inthe room—muchmore “get the best people into the job” than “get the right jobs to the bestpeople”—butclose enough.Why not go withit

butcreate two succession planning events, onegeared toward selecting the best person for each key job (the traditional replacement planninguse of the process) and another one to select experiences needed to further develop high potentialpeople? Neither requires

changing the nature or philosophy of the executives,and they avoidsurfacing the nature/nurture issue.The first session is what they are used to doing.Thesecondsimply asks

them to identify the key challenges facing the business and to identify theexperiences their best talentshould

get to prepare them for those challenges.Theselectiondecisions

are madefor a business reason.

Embed Development

Seamlessly inthe

Business Strategy

Linking key challenges facing the business to experiences that talented people shouldhave, as suggested above, is not as easy as it sounds. It is not enough to makead hoc decisions

15

around particular individuals. There must be away

to identify what experiences are importantgiven

the strategic needs of the business. In other words, to be a priority development must beembedded in and integral tobusiness success.This can be accomplished in several ways.

One way

to identify experiences that would prepare leaders to carry out the businessstrategywas developedwith the senior team of a major international corporation

(McCall, 1998).The CEO

and

his direct reports

identified three strategic initiatives they agreed were key to thefuture of the business.In three groups, one for each of thoseinitiatives, they listed

the leadershipchallenges that each strategy would present, then identified

where talented junior managers couldlearn to handle those challenges. Not surprisingly they came up withcompany-specific versionsof the experiences identifiedby

research on important developmental experiences (McCall et al.,1988)—certain special projects, working for certain

model

bosses, and various challengingassignments.

These specific developmental opportunities, identified by the senior executives ascrucial preparation for the strategic challenges, now could be allocated to individuals in the highpotential pool.

A similar endeavor with the senior team of anothercompany took a slightly differenttack. This

companywas organizedintobusiness units that produced quite different products fordifferent markets, as well asintothe usual

corporatestaff functions such as finance, businessdevelopment, and human resources. The

business strategy called for leaders with

cross-businessand cross-functionalperspective, but it wasn’t obvious how much experience, for how long,orinhow many of the businesses

and functions, was actually needed. Norwere they clear onexactlywhatshould be learnedfrom such moves other than “broader perspective.” To help themanswerthose key questions,the senior leaders of each businessand functioncreated

two charts. Thefirst was a list of things a manager would have to master

(be good at)

to be successful in that

16

business or function. The second chart was about things even a successful person would not beexposed to or would not have tomasterin the business

or function,as well as anythingnegativethat might be learnedwhileworking there.

Because most of the executives had worked in more than one of the businesses orfunctions, this proved to be a relatively easy task.Not only could they identify specific aspectsthat must be mastered, but even the “negative learning” came

out

readily.

Theselists

of “whatneeds to be mastered” for each business and function were used to identify

Another large corporation struggled with silo mentality created by careers spent in asingle line of business or function.Instead of working across boundaries to solve strategicproblems,the

businesses fought or underminedwhatthey saw as

“bureaucratic processes”foisted upon them

by staff functions;

and staff unitsfelt

hamstrung by “uncooperative andparochial” line managers. Neither side respected the other, much less would consider a crossboundary move to gain a broader perspective

or working together to solve problems.

The senior executives in each of the line units and staff

functions were

asked to considerwhat experiences they could give people

from the “other side” that would allow them tounderstand the issues from their perspective. One of the line units, for example, needed financialdata in a certain form but was unable to convince the finance organization to give it to them inthat way. They came up with some short-term project assignments

that a finance person couldparticipate in that would help him or her understand why the data needed to be a certain way.The finance organization, doing the same kind of exercise, came up with some temporaryassignments in which a line person could geta sense for what was involved in making changes in

17

data reporting. The subsequent exchanges allowed both parties to benefit and eventually led tostrategic solutions to the problems at hand. And, since the individuals returned to their homebases, the resulting level of understanding and cross-boundary relationshipsled to bettercooperation as new challenges developed.

In short, when it comes to using experience to develop people, line executives are an easysell. They readily accept the philosophyof learning in the trenches, and their own experiencecan be framed in ways to link the business strategy to needed experiences, to find thoseexperiences in the organization,

and to identifywhat might be learned from them.

Use Ongoing Business Initiatives—not HR Processes—for Development

If senior executives readily accept the value of challenging experiences and, with someguidance, can identify where those experiences are, what they can teach, and who might benefitfrom them, thenHRprograms and processes are

not necessary for development to occur. In fact,perhaps the less HR language used and fewer HR-initiated processes, theless chance thatattentionwill be divertedfrom where it should be—on experience.Maybein an experience-centric development worldthere is no need to impose a different language(e.g.HR speak“competencies,”

which Steve Kerr, former Vice President of Leadership Development and ChiefLearning Officer at GE under Jack Welch, described (2009) as “HR playing with its food”)ortooverdesign a process

by imposing formidable forms and procedures. Perhaps instead attentioncould be focused on taking advantage of ongoing business initiativesby making deflections thatenhance their

developmental power.

As an

example

ofsuch an opportunity

consider

the task forces created by Carlos Ghosnto save Nissan. The major problems that were threatening the very existence of the company had

18

been identified, and, not surprisingly, they required cross-functional solutions

(Ghosn & Ries,2005). So Ghosn created several cross-functional teams(CFTs)to tackle the major problems:

Each CFT was to consist of about 10 members with different functionalexperience and a proven track record drawn from the ranks of middlemanagers…

Their role was to act as team sponsors and facilitate the team’s work,particularly by removing organizational barriers (Yoshino & Egawa, 2003,p.2).

Needless to say, participating on one of those task forces wasa very challengingassignment

that

included

intense time pressure and presenting

recommendationsdirectlyto a very demanding Carlos Ghosn. It isclear that the people on these task forces had tolearn in depthaboutthe problem they were tackling

and

aboutfunctional areas other thantheir own, come to understand and work with people from other functions and levels, andcreate a recommendation, backed up with facts and figures!Even though

developmentwas not what prompted Ghosn to structure theexperiences

the way he did or to pick thepeople he chose, everyone involved was being developed. What an opportunity, with justa little tweaking—forexample by influencing who was chosen to participate or providingfeedback along the way—to

turn this into an even more powerful learning event, withthe learning outcomes not left to chance!

Lou Gerstner in his diving catch rescue of IBM chose a similar strategy forsolving the major strategic challenges facing the business (Gerstner,

2002).Once again

19

cross-functional task forces tackled serious strategic challenges to the business, and thosechosen to serve on them not only were tested but had a unique opportunity to learn.

Such opportunities are all around as organizations go about confrontingstrategicchallenges, especially now as the global economic meltdown has everyone scrambling tosurvive and thrive.If only someoneis there to tweak it by identifying

the specialdevelopmental opportunities created bythe key challenges facing the organization,

influencing

how those challenges are attacked, keeping

development needs in mind whenselecting who will be involved, and providing

an opportunity for reflection during andafter the event.

There is a role to be played in developing people through experience thatneither the immediate boss nor the HR generalist is able to play very well.

Create a

NewRole

to Assist Line Executives

Clearly there is a need for another player in the development game who brings a differentperspective and plays a different

role—a “wise counselor” of sorts. This someone needs tounderstand the people and their developmentalneeds, the on-line developmental opportunitiesinthe organization and what they might teach, and the strategy of the business as it dictates both.This someone then is the knowledge resource able to take advantage of opportunities as theyappear in the flow of thingsandto influence who gets what experience. To exert this influencewith line management, where such decisions are actually made, this someone must be credible

aswell as knowledgeable.

The role closest to this

is titled “business partner”

in some organizations,

atitle

lessrelevant than the responsibility as an advisor to senior managers on

people

matters (includingdevelopment)

as they

occur in the day to day operation of the business.These people reportdirectly to the line managers they support, with apossibledotted line into human resources

20

(rather than the other way around). They frequently have a limited HR background but aregrounded thoroughly in the business and its strategy,

and gain their credibilitywith linemanagementthroughtheir practical

knowledge and maturity.

Their role isto

help their chargesrecognize people with potential and take advantage of developmental opportunities that appear.They keep track of high potential people over time and to some extent across bosses, and dowhat they can to help people learn from their experience. The very informality of the nudgingand tweaking processis whatmakes it work.

Focus

Attention

on

Learning from Experience, not Just Having It

You don’t have to spend too much time around managers and executives to notice thatreflection is not their strength. Ever since Mintzberg(1977)brought together the diary andobservational studies of managerial work,

it’s been clear that the norm is many activitiesengaged in at a fast pace. Managers “just sort of dash around a lot.” If this was true thirty yearsago, before Blackberries, lean processes, virtual teams, and working across global time zones,then it is even more so today. While it may be good news if

all that activity means

more isgetting done, the implications for development are not so positive.

One victim of the peripatetic managerial life style is systematic development. Even ifexecutivesbelieve inthe role of experience in development, they are not necessarilydedicated toconsistent application

orto

building systems and processes to support it. In other words, theirproclivity is todeal with talent (at leasthigh-level talent) one case at a time, as circumstancesrequire and context dictates. And, while the immediate boss, for a variety of reasons, has themost direct influence on a subordinate’s development, immediate bosses rarely have the time orinclination to make developing others a top priority. Even when it is a priority, they are probablynot very good at it. As a result, talented people may have a career-long personnel file, but in

21

reality have started over with each new boss. There is no cumulative record of what they havelearned orconsistency inhow they have developed over time.

Given these and other forces working against a full commitment to development, there isno substitute for educating developing leaders on how to take responsibility

for their owndevelopment. This of course is not a new idea, but it’s not obvious to people how to create ameaningful plan based on experience, and even when the principles are understood it is not easyto actually createand carry outsuch a plan (McCall, 2009).

The ideal personal development plan would describe what the person needs to learn howto do (basedon the business strategy or his orher personal goals), identify the experiences thatcould offer those lessons, find

a way to get the needed experiences, and create

the necessaryfeedback, support, and incentives to actually learn the lessons sought. But short of all that, thereis a simpler way to

get morelearningout of whatever assignment one has.

As part of a

research project on how people

learn from experience,I contacteda smallnumber of newly promoted executives biweekly and asked two simple questions:“What haveyou donesince we last talked?”

and“What, if anything, have you learned from it?”

At first itwas a challenge for them even to remember what they had done in the previous two weeks, giventhe relentless pace and performance pressure of the executive job. But fairly quickly, inanticipation of the next contact, they started paying more attention. By simplybeingaware ofwhat they were doing and what they were learning from doing it, their experience became richer.As one of them said at the end of the study, “I never knew that asking dumb questions couldmake so big a difference.” Some of them even began asking the same dumb questions of theirhigh potential subordinates, and as a result created a learning environment in their unit.

22

Much of development is a matter of attention. If people can learn to keep learning inmind, more of it can happen.

Shift

theFocustoMastery

Paying attention to learning begs the questionof what needs to be learned. I

have usedthe term “leadership” rather loosely in this

discussion of development, as if what is known aboutit might inform a development agenda. Yet, despite some progress,

the conceptof leadershipeven today seems just as fragmented and unconvincing as whenWarrenBennis wrote his classicsummary of the leadership field in 1959.

The ubiquitous competency models with their finitelists of general attributes fare somewhat better, but still fall short in fundamental ways. Not onlyare they limited in breadth and usually quite general, but they imply a single set of attributes tosomething that obviously can be accomplished by people with many different attributes. And,themore-is-better perspective ignores the complex relationships among strengths andweaknesses and the dynamics of derailment which, among other things, include strengthsbecoming weaknesses.

Is there an option? Our interviews and surveys of successful executivesproduced

hundreds of descriptions of the experiences that had shaped them, and literally thousands of thelessons they said they had learned from those experiences. Reducing both to empiricallyjustifiable and useful categorieswasa

harrowingtask,and

of thetworesulting frameworks itwasthe experiences that received the preponderance of attention.But it is the framework forunderstanding the lessons of those experiences, however, that has the most potential for helpingpeople think throughtheir own development.

The thousands of lessons were first sorted into thirty-two categories which in turn weredivided into five large chunks thatreflected what leaders must be able to do: set direction and

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build an organization capable of achieving it; align through influence or direct authority thevarious parties needed to achieve the strategic goals; develop the temperament to cope with theambiguity, pressures, frustrations, and excitement of the job; set, live, and enforce the values thatdefine the organization;

and continually grow their own and others ability

(see Table 3).

Table 3 about here

These represent the basic demands oftheleadership

role.

These demandscan be metinremarkably different ways,butall leaders face them. Leadership is about creating a context inwhich other people will bring their talents to bear on the strategic issues of the organization, andthatcontext is created by how effectively leaders meet these demands.Looking at leadershipdevelopment as acquiring the expertise to meet these demands avoids the monotheistic search fora single style, personality,orset ofabilities

common to all leaders,the vain search for a “onebest way” which has led repeatedly to dead ends.

Instead it focuses us on the variety of waysthat “mastery” in meeting the demands of the job can be acquired.

More importantly the

lessons

of experience by definitionconfirm that leadership can belearned. No doubt some people have natural abilities that help them meetsome ofthesedemands, but others with different natural gifts were able to learn how to do those things, andthey learned it through experience. Thisis consistent withthe extensive research on theacquisition of expertisein other fields of endeavor (Ericsson, 1996; Ericsson,

Charness,Feltovich, & Hoffman, 2006)which has recentlyappeared

in the popular literature

(Colvin,2008).

Among other commonalities

(see McCall & Hollenbeck, 2008, for a detailedexplanation), acquiring leadership expertise requires mastery of a largedomain of knowledge,skills, and abilities

(mastery of the demands); occurs over a lifetime of effort; requires years ofintentional effort and practice;involves certain kinds of teachers at crucial inflection points;and

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demands “playing on edge” (recognizing what the next step toward mastery is and movingtoward it rather than staying with what you already know).Further, just as research on expertisehas emphasizedthe importance ofdesire and discipline

tobecoming

world class, research onpotential (Spreitzer et al., 1997) documented similar qualities in international managers andexecutives rated by their bosses to be highest in potential.

Support

the Pursuit of Mastery

One reason few organizations fully exploit whatis

known

about using experienceis that,inevitably, responsibility for it devolves to the human resources function but HR does not rise tothe opportunity. Instead of bringing powerful tools and processes to bear in support ofexperience, they all too often are not integrated at all,are

used piecemeal,

or are integratedaround some other less useful principle.We have the toolsto support learning from experience,but not the perspective

to use them for that purpose.

After all, to use experience effectively

theremust be ways to(1)to identify people with potential,(2) to identify the important developmentalassignments, other people, etc.,(3) to get the people who need them into the experiences theyneed,(4) help them learn from the experiences they have, and(5) track individual

growth anddevelopment over time. Clearly there are HR practices and methodologies that could supporteach ofthese necessary components. Take, as examples, the following:



Selection methods, such as the group assessmentof executive abilitydescribed by

Sorcherand Brant (2002) could be used equally well to assess potential, learning from experience,and development over time--

by adding or focusing questions around those issues.



Performance

management, in addition to the annual or semi-annual appraisal

of jobperformance, could includeaccountability for andmeasurement ofspecific growthobjectives,and provide a platform for recording cumulative

developmental progress.

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

360 feedback

tools could be usedtoaddress observable growth and development,or lackthereof,



Coaching

could be used not only to help individuals learn more from their experience, butalso to help their bosses do a better job of creating development opportunities and the context(including accountability) to enhance learning from those opportunities



Succession planning

could be used to marry people and experiences, build in accountability,and provide specific feedback to individuals on what they are expected to develop.



Training anddevelopment programs

could be timed to support people going through difficulttransitions,be designed to help people learn to better manage and learn from their ownexperiences, provide space and processes for reflection on and integration of experience, orsimulate experiences that are too rare or costlyto provide real time.

In addition to these traditional tools and

practices, new onesdeveloped specifically tosupport learning from experience are beginning to appear. Yost and Plunkett (2009), forexample, have developed a number of simple, on-line tools that managers can use for selfassessment, identifying potentially useful experiences, and making more of the assignments theyfind themselves in.

In sum, there is much we know how to do that could be brought to the table

ofexperience.

Conclusion

This

articlebegan with seven “sure bets” about experienceand

leadership development,considered why that knowledge oftenisnot

applied,andsuggested

some practical ways to putexperience at the center of development.Where does this leave us?

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Some verydedicated people with very good minds have taken a swing at this, but despiteall the years of research, best practices, handbooks of this and that, technological advances indata storage and handling, new concepts and measurement techniques,

the difficulties remain.Ironically,could it bethat selection is ultimately the key to development?

If leaders

are selectedand promoted

who(a)understand that leadership is critical to the business,(b) accept

thattalented people can learn to lead,(c) believethat they learn it through experience, and(d) have alonger-term perspective, then the odds are good that they will model development and holdothers accountable for it. If wethencandevelop ”wise counselors”—peoplewho understand thestrategic issues,

know what and where the challenging experiences are, know who has potentialand their strengths and weaknesses, andunderstand how experience works—tohelp executivestweak on the job experience for developmental reasons

(andmaybe evenprovide timely supportto help people learn from their experiences),thenmaybe we will have pushed the envelope as faras it will go as long as fallible human beings have to lead imperfect systems.

With the “right people on the bus,”

the crucial issue for practice is rethinkingdevelopment with strategic challenges and on-the-job experience as the driving issues. Fromthere it is possible to redesign and reconfigure tools and processes to support and strengthen thedevelopment of talent.

From a research perspective, the focus should shift from the recent emphasis on ways tomeasure the impact of human resource programs to better understanding how to use experiencemore effectively. But enough is known about experiences and what and why they teach. Moreis needed in three crucial areas:

(1)A key issue in developing talent through experience is deciding who to give the experiencesto. Some research (e.g. Spreitzer, McCall, & Mahoney, 1997) has attempted to address that issue

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in the context of development, but our understanding of potential is rudimentary at best

(see arecent review by Silzer & Church, in press). It is possible that there are many

or at least multiple

forms of potential that are equallylikely to blossom, that potential changes over time and afterexperience, and that there is much to learn from the existing research on how experts becomeexperts that applies to the leadership arena.

(2) Work on the transition from individual contributor to manager (Hill,1992), on passages(Dotlich, Noel, & Walker, 2004), crucibles (Bennis &

the larger concepts ofcareers and life stages, transitions are crucial.But much remains to be learned about which ones are most central to leadership developmentand what can be done to help talented people get through them successfully.

(3) It is clear that learning from experience is not automatic, that not everyone learns fromexperience, that people may learn different things from the same kind of experience, and thatprior experience affects what can be learned from current experience. But it is notasclear whatthe obstacles are to learning from differentkinds

of experiences, or on the flip side, what mightenhance it.

Until more is known about these aspects of learning from experience, efforts tointervene effectively to enhance learning will continue to be hit or miss. And because so muchof learning from experience depends on the learner’s insight,useful research might

explore whatreflectionlooks like

in a managerial world and how to stimulate it.

Although life and leadership development may never be totally predictable, the cost ofleadership failure is too high to accept less than our best efforts.It is time to focus

on the mostpromising and potentially powerful developer of leaders, experience, andtodo what we can touse it in the most effective ways possible to shape the kinds of leaders needed

for the future.

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Table 1: The Language of Executive Assessment



She’s a fine engineer, but there are contracts on her life in Divisions A and B.



He has trouble working with others. We don’t have time for that.



He’s a big bag of warts, but he’s really

smart.



It’s a tough job dealing with GE, but she’s done it very well.



He has really gone out of his comfort zone.



He was Y’s product marketing guy and did very well.



She builds a team beyond belief.



He understands the story.



She is relentless getting cost

out and will deliver what she promises.



She is a better strategic thinker than Y is.



That takes him out if he limits himself to Scotland.



She’s ready for something more.



If we move him do we risk making the dominoes fall?

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Table 2: Making Sense ofthe

Language of Executive Assessment

Derailment

“Flaws” that have been toleratedmay

no longerbetolerated.

•She’s a fine engineer, but there are contracts on her life inDivisionsA and B.

•He has trouble working with others. We don’t have time for that.

•He’s a big bag of warts, but he’s really smart.

Challenging Assignments

An emphasis is on relevant and revealing experience.

•It’sa tough job dealing with GE, but

she’s done it very well.

•He has really gone out of his comfort zone.

•He was Y’s product marketing guy.

•She builds a team beyond belief.

What Makes a Person Valuable

They favor people who understand what needs to be done—who “get it.”

•He understands the story.

•She is relentless getting cost out and will deliver

on her promises.

•She is a better strategic thinker than Y is.

Availability

People are considered only if it is practical to move them.

•That takes him out if he limits himself to Scotland.

•She’s ready for something more.

•If we move him do we risk makingthedominoes fall?

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Table 3: The Five Demands of Leadership

Leadership:

Creating a context in which other people can reach their full potential in servingthe organization’s mission. Context is created by the ways a person in a leadership roleaddresses the five demands described below.

Setting and Communicating Direction

Purpose, Vision, Mission, Point of View

Establishing and communicating the Purpose, Vision, Mission, Point of View for your part of theorganization, and creating an architecture such that structure, processes, rewards, and humanresource practices are consistent with that direction and each other.

Aligning Critical Constituencies

Through the use of authority, persuasion, negotiation, or other means, making sure that thepeople and groups necessary to achieving the mission understand it and are aligned with it, andthat those who are obstacles to it are dealt with.

Developing an Executive Temperament

Developing the ability and confidence necessary to cope effectively with the pressures,ambiguity, complexity, and

frustrations of a leadership role.

Setting and Living Values

Through actions as well as words, conveying and reinforcing what the organization, and you as aleader and person, believe in and stand for.

Growth of Self and Others

Taking the necessary actions to insure that one’s self and one’s people continue to learn, grow,and change.